The End of Reading's Analysis - Essay Example

Trend states that, his daughter (Emily) is normal in every aspect but she is not good in reading and all this can be attributed to television programs and video games. She may catch up with her peers in terms of reading though it may take her quite a while as it is stated in the book. Trend has worked in various places that have given him exposure to research material on analysis of reading and visual studies. He worked for Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism from 1980 to 1995, which deals in publishing of essays and articles through film studies, photographs and media theory.

From the book it is apparent that there is a new type of illiteracy in America and people have resorted to blaming schools, the media too hasn’t been left behind in this blame game. From the book, End of Reading: Gutenberg to Grand Theft Auto, I am going to focus on the writer’s idea on The New American literacy, Blaming Schools, The media made me do it and Child development & human evolution so as to clearly show the importance of reading and how it has been affected over the passage of time.

Analysis Right from the start the writer states about his daughter’s reluctance and inability to read well and that many other children are affected by the same problem, it is evident that there is some form of illiteracy. Furthermore statistics in the book state that one out of seven adults in America is incapable of reading a newspaper. It is clear that there is a new American illiteracy, where people do not know much as far as reading is concerned but prefer other mediums of learning. The Verbal SAT scores of the children in American schools have continued to dwindle over the decades that have passed.

A researcher, Shieda White, states that most people have a difficulty in reading connected sentences or paragraphs. Many children would rather play video games and watch television than read a book. Reading has become torturous to many children in America since many attribute it with difficulty. The amount of illiteracy is increasing in America, this problem is far from over since most of the people and organizations that can actually change it have resorted to blaming one another. Schools have turned into the main targets of those in search for someone to blame about the persisting problem.

These learning institutions have been tirelessly trying to educate the children and make them more connected to the reading culture but the advancement in technology has failed them. Children no longer find books interesting as they would rather use computers, play video games and watch television. In the 90s some writer wrote books on the effects of computers, this when they were starting to crop up and whilst their popularity steadily increased, Marshall McLuhan and Raymond Williams are among the few who addressed the issue of technology in schools.

Virtual community (1993) and Manual Castells’ The Information City (1989) are books that were written right after computers were introduced for personal use, they address how the computers were going to have effects on the society. If at all schools want to make learning effective then it is important that they use visual arts and introduce film studies. Some individual may not have what it takes to be good writers so they have to seek other means of expression. Leonardo Di Vinci is one person that can